[loopydate]

Originally Posted by Buzzkill What's it about then exactly?

It's hard to explain, because there are a lot of storylines going at once. Here's a shot at it, though:

Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher) is divorced and has a teenage daughter. She's infatuated with the mysterious new guy in town Mike Delfino (James Denton). Recently, while house-sitting, she found piles of money and a gun in his cabinets. He also has a map of Wisteria Lane (where all of the show takes place), with handmade markings at most houses.

Edie Britt (Nicolette Sheridan) is sort of the town bicycle. She's also interested in Mike, and has made her intentions very clear. In fact, at one point, Susan went to Edie's house and thought she caught Edie and Mike...y'know...doin' it. She accidentally knocked over a candle or something and set Edie's house on fire, so...

Edie had to move in with Martha Huber (Christine Estabrook), who was a horrible bitch. Martha found out that it was Susan who accidentally burned Edie's house down, and started blackmailing Susan with the information. Turns out, Susan wasn't the only one she'd been blackmailing.

In the pilot, Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) committed suicide. Her friends (all of the housewives, minus Edie and Martha) were helping her husband Paul (Mark Moses) pack up all of her belongings when they found a threatening note. Paul hired a private investigator (Richard "Shaft" Roundtree), who found out that the note was written on stationery that Edie was using. He offered to kill Edie for Paul, and was about to do it when he found out that Edie was using Martha's stationery. Paul dismissed the PI, and decided to kill Martha himself. Now she's dead.

Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) is unhappily married to Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira), and so was having an affair with their young gardener John Rowland (Jesse Metcalfe). Carlos got suspicious, and brought in his mom Juanita (Lupe Ontiveros) to help him find out who she was sleeping with. Juanita caught John and Gabrielle in bed, then ran out of the house...and into traffic. She's in a coma now.

The "Stepfordesque" Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia Cross)'s marriage is crumbling. Her husband Rex (Steven Culp) has moved out, and the kids are torn between them. Rex tried to bribe their son Andrew (Shawn Pyfrom) with a car. After getting thrown out of the house by Bree, Andrew goes out with friends and gets drunk. And, you guessed it, he's the one who hit Juanita. Bree just hatched a plan to ditch the car, and it has apparently worked.

Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) worked in an ad agency (and was apparently doing very well) before quitting to start a family. Now, her kids are loud troublemakers, and she's taking their ADD medication to try and relieve some of her tension. Now, the medication is keeping her up nights, and she's starting to lose her grip. She contemplated suicide in the last episode, but Susan and Bree convinced her that they had their problems raising kids, too.

Uh... I think that's all the important stuff. I know it looks really soapy and whatever, but the writing is crisp, and the acting is really good (well, of course. It has Felicity Huffman for Christ's sake!). Good stuff.

Oh, and I got all the character and actor names from IMDB. I still haven't got all the names down yet...